There were no lights, and that made for a dark and difficult-to-see ride. The horses, too, knew of that and did not dare speed too much. And Sean, for the first time, went past the shaky bridge. It was definitely difficult to scale, as it was the kind that looked like those that snapped in half while the group of protagonists were crossing it —far wider, though, with far thicker ropes and wood. Thankfully that made his anxiety lesser, even despite the bridge flailing around as they crossed it. But still, it was a terrifying thought, falling into a watery death.

Well, not terrifying. It was more along the lines of something he didn’t want, but not all that scary. Not in the Calibration, at least.

It wasn’t something he could casually break, and Brandon had to leave through the way they came. Probably it was a better idea to not break off the bridge. The fall to the water below was at least fifty meters down, and Sean knew full well that most people died from a fall of twenty meters into the water —there was a suicide bridge in Nerea, much like every other city, and had that not been the case, so many suicides wouldn’t have happened on said bridge.

So they simply passed by. Unexpectedly, the way up wasn’t all that far. In fact, it was far closer than he’d anticipated from the bottom. The fall he’d noticed seemed to be a fissure, and a damn large one at that, as if it was a natural moat that was meant to protect the mountain from assault. Too bad it had been wasted on some giants. If there was a kingdom and castle here, then it could have benefitted greatly from it.

“Shit,” mumbled Sean as he hopped off the horse, this time carefully. The horse moved slightly, but he forcefully kept his cool and managed to get off with no injuries. That was a good one. Brandon, on the other hand, effortlessly got off the horse and tapped on its back to send it away far too casually. He’d heard of horses that traveled miles to get home, so they would most likely not get lost. At least Sean thought so as he sent off the one he’d been riding as well. Fillmore would forgive him if it didn’t come back… right?

With an axe in one hand and shield in the other, dressed in boiled leather armor, Brandon looked every bit the warrior he tried to look like, and possibly, be. His axe was the kind that was practical and usable for combat rather than the kind that chopped wood —slightly shorter and the blade was certainly far sharper. And his shield was a buckler with red paint splattered over it and a small metal bump in the middle. It was securely tied to his forearms, it seemed. The fact that he wanted to feast in Valhalla, the name of the ‘world’ and the giants all pointed toward the Calibration Stage being Nordic in origin, something everyone would expect from the setting.

Sean wore the same leather armor as well over his plain black shirt, which was a sharp contrast with Brandon’s white tunic. And he wasn’t all that impressive in terms of weaponry or appearance, only possessing a single dagger sheathed to his left side. It was so that he could draw it with his right hand rather than the left. Even his physique made him look like a dwarf if you assumed Brandon to be the standard.

“Let’s go!” shouted out Brandon, almost as loud as his lungs would allow and slapped his chest with one palm. Sean facepalmed. Did this guy know anything about sneaking?! Well, there should be only one giant here, so it should be easier. And he hoped that the wind would have drowned out most of the noise.

Running up was discouraging, but seeing the brown stain on the ground where the pool of blood that he’d bled was prevented Sean from having any smart ideas again —anytime he had one, it turned into shit and he was injured. In fact, it was surprising that nothing had turned to shit yet.

“Quiet!” Sean whisper-shouted, as you would in class when you couldn’t talk but wanted to be loud, or rather, give off the impression of being loud, “You’ll wake it up!”

“You be quiet. I’ve been waiting for this my whole life. You’re just some Outlander who had everything handed to him on a silver platter,” said Brandon, growling. He was an irritating guy, Sean knew that, but every time he acted like this, Sean wanted to throw him off a cliff —which would be easy.

“Oh, great. Yeah, Mr. Berserker, I am the lucky one. Did you look at yourself in the mirror?” said Sean and turned his head slightly. He didn’t know why he did it, but he looked far too much like a certain delinquent he knew. But when Brandon stared at him without a word, his brows furrowing ever so slightly, Sean realized it —this guy didn’t know about mirrors! The seething anger he’d felt a moment ago faded, replaced with annoyance. He corrected himself and wanted to get this over with, “Reflection! I’m asking you if you’ve looked at your reflection. You’re almost twice my size and weight!”

“You’re shouting now,” said Brandon, and sure enough, Sean had shouted —for real, this time, rather than a whisper shout. He was inclined to facepalm again, but held himself back. There was no reasoning with him. At least he was a master at making him less angry and more annoyed.

“Whatever. Fine, go ahead and die. I don’t care,” said Sean as he promptly turned around. No matter what, he couldn’t get along with someone like that. Then he added while waving his hands, as if gesturing goodbye, “Don’t talk to me again. It’s stressful.”

Instead, he took his mind off the annoying viking and turned to look up at the straw hut. On second glance, it was rather large. He didn’t know why he was climbing up there in the first place, as if it would help him. Then again, the climb was the thing that let him meet Fillmore so naturally. Otherwise he would have gotten himself killed far too easily.

“We need to work together,” said Brandon now, and Sean’s left eye twitched, “There’s no honor in dying without a fight.”

“Then fucking keep quiet,” Sean practically growled through clenched teeth, pointing a finger at him.

Why… was he acting like an asshole?

It seemed that morons really did bring the worst out in people.

The walk up to the hut was… quiet, for the lack of a better word. The slight loud breathe was all he could make out as he got closer, which Sean had assumed to be Brandon’s.

He was wrong.

It was the sound of the giant sleeping. People took longer, deeper breaths when they were asleep, and the same applied to the giant. With far larger vocal cords and just about everything that a human had, it stood to reason that the giant’s breathing could be heard from a dozen meters away from the giant hut.

Killing someone amidst combat when they were coming after you was something, but killing them by coming after them in the middle of the night was different. It was murder, not surviving. And there was something so distinctly wrong with that —but it was for a purpose. It was so that he could become stronger, so that he may not be oppressed in this new world.

Sean took a glance at Brandon behind him, and noticed him about to explode from excitement. There seemed to be a spring underneath his heels, each step almost a hop. What was his problem? He was excited about killing someone. It was a giant, yes, and it was necessary; but it was still iffy for him.

“Go,” mumbled Sean, gesturing much like those special force teams in movies. He didn’t know if it was accurate, but he didn’t care. There was only one thing it could possibly mean, and that was to go in. But Brandon halted his steps slowly as he looked at something near the hut, making Sean look at whatever had caught his attention. Before he did, he heard a shout. It was a high-pitched, female one.

Following the scream led Sean to the silhouette of someone, but he couldn’t quite make it out —especially in the darkness— as she slipped back into the hut.

The calm breaths from before lost their pace and a groan sounded out, followed by a loud and somewhat slow, “Silence, woman!”

Brandon sprinted toward the hut, screaming bloody murder, flailing his axe and buckler. Well, that was what a tank was supposed to do, so… it was good. But their odds weren’t very high in fair combat. The giant was far larger than them, and if he was correct, warriors would have less of a chance at beating them than Sean did —and even his method would rely on spamming spells until he was out of Mana.

There went the element of surprise…

Well, now it wouldn’t be murder. It’d be survival, and that’s what he did best. He closed his eyes and prepared himself. He had time to think now. Before, he was giddy with excitement, but soon after the fight started and everything started to go to shit, he didn’t have room for any thoughts. Now, he had a small window of time in which he had time to think on his actions.

Then he remembered something his father always used to say, and heard it in his father’s voice, whispering into his ears, “There is no turning back once you’ve made the choice,” as if he already knew what he meant by that cryptic line.

He used to think it was him talking about his profession, but with his ancestry unearthed, Sean thought he finally knew what it meant. And turn back, he would not. It was necessary.

Sean’s focus shattered as a loud thump sounded out —the giant came out of the hut, and Brandon stared up at it, his neck on the verge of snapping as he struggled to look up. It wore the brown fur the same as before. He was as large as a building, and was far larger than Brandon. But he wasn’t afraid. No one that was afraid would casually slide through the gap between his teeth to slam an axe into a giant’s tendons.

Brandon was drawing the attention, and Sean couldn’t ask for more. He pointed a finger at the giant as it turned around around, trying to catch the viking with its somewhat sluggish movements. Then the circles required to cast a Timed Explosive Mana Ball: Push appeared, and the sequence started once again. This time, he put it on a timer of 2 seconds. The giant wasn’t far.

The beaming ball of blue that had practically turned white by the time it got to the giant exploded on its spine and pushed it down, a cloud of blue smoke being created with a radius of around a meter. It stumbled to the ground, and Sean let out a short cackle. He could topple a giant!

It was an exhilarating feeling.

He almost didn’t notice Brandon almost being crushed to death, only missing the giant by a half a meter. Its hand almost slapped on him, but at the very least, Brandon managed to dodge it. And that’s when Sean heard the worst noise he thought he’d ever hear —a wet squish, soon followed by the giant’s shouts. It was a loud one, similar to an airhorn in terms of intensity, even from afar.

Brandon had slammed his axe into the giant’s eyes without a moment’s delay, and was slammed to the side. He fell down, and all Sean could do was stare, dazed by the volume of the shout; contrary to what he felt previously. In fact, the expression on his face was frozen. By the time the giant stood up, though, Sean finally came back to his senses. Filled with desperation after losing his tank, Sean quite literally unloaded everything he could.

Explosive Mana Ball after Explosive Mana Ball slung itself at the giant’s guts, and each one exploded with mere seconds’ worth of delay with the effects of Computation showing itself. After ten, Sean was left panting and kneeling on the ground. What happened, he didn’t know. The first one created a cloud of smoke, and each one after that only made it larger, obscuring his vision.

But a loud thud —far louder than a step— made it apparent what had happened. At least the giant was down. For sure or not, he wouldn’t know until the smoke of bright blue cleared. And it didn’t clear for a while, the gaseous mana heavily prowling away ever so slightly. Hesitantly, Sean stepped closer, not even bothering to check his Status Screen for how much Mana he had. He was low on it, but he could cast one or two more. He just knew it, even without the System telling him.

With an arm pointed out, Sean walked through the cloud and hit the giant’s body. It was visible, as the smoke was no longer a smokescreen and a fog by then. The smell seemed magical, for the lack of a better word. Very akin to fresh air, but just not, in some manner. Every single one of his pores felt energized and his entire body tingled.

He felt a slight movement to his left, and almost reflexively, Sean shot an Explosive Mana Ball, this time with a counter of one second, toward its direction. He could only make out the humanoid, human-sized, silhouette before a boom happened.

Some liquid landed on his cheeks.

The explosion this time didn’t add onto the smoke. It instead blew away the rest of the smoke and finally, the battlefield revealed itself. The giant was lying there, but something else caught his attention —something far different. It was a thin and slender arm, golden brown, evidently belonging to a woman. Not even a meter away from it was lying the intestines of the poor victim.

It was an accident.

“No…” mumbled Sean as he knelt down to the ground. The contents of his stomach emptied itself on the ground and the sharp smell of vomit mixed with the thick odor of metal as well as feces to create a stench so disgusting that Sean could keep on vomiting if there was anything within his stomach, and he gagged at least thrice before he recovered, if it could be called that.

It took everything from him to turn his eyes away from the woman’s disfigured corpse —the legs remained there with her navel, but the rest was scattered across the world. Sean didn’t dare look for the other pieces, especially not the face.

But his eyes didn’t listen to him and wandered to places he didn’t wish to look at, and to the mountainside to his left side. Upon it a drawing of blood and guts had been plastered, and at the bottom was a round thing with hair at its back. Anyone with a brain would know what it was, given the context.

And when he peeled his eyes away from the corpse to the most obvious direction, that being left, he saw the giant’s body lying there. The first thing Sean noticed was the hole in its stomach. While upright, it stood as tall as a building, in terms of width from back to front, it only reached slightly above his waist.

He didn’t dare get closer. It was apparent what had happened. No human lived after getting a literal hole drilled into their gut. But he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was a human-sized hand, with a firm grip.

The last time, it was a clean kill. It had damaged the skull and the brain, and he’d collapsed soon after. This time, he was awake, and he was conscious, staring at the results of his carelessness. Again, he tried to vomit, but the hand on his shoulder pulled him back.

Sean slowly turned his head behind him to look at whoever it was, and saw Brandon shaking his head. And then the world faded to darkness as a fist connected with his head.

 

***

 

“Why didn’t you fight back?” asked a man with a short, brown stubble for a beard. His hair was of the same color, just a finger short of being a ginger. With a suit and all, he was exactly what you’d expect from a businessman. On his left forearm was a watch, and it showed that it was a quarter to three —clearly, the boy sitting next to him on the front seat should still be in school.

He wore a uniform, as was natural of schools in Broica, even public ones. It was a suit, yes, but the jacket was a dark red and the pants were white. The color made it easier to see the countless brown shoe prints on it. A small lip cut could be seen to the right edge of his upper lip on top of a slightly swollen part. To add up to it, his left eye was blue now, the eyelids also swollen blue. Whoever he was, he’d gotten the beating of his life.

“I can’t fight,” said the boy quietly and stared down at his feet. If anyone looked closely, they could see that he was in his early teens, but due to his current state, nothing could be said for sure. However, his uniform would do the talking for him. The dark red American suit with higher buttons was for those with the grades 6 through 9. As if it would help his situation, he helpfully added, “And there were three of them.”

“You can. Anyone can, Sean,” said the man, “You just didn’t.”

“Did you look at them, dad?” almost shouted out Sean with his somewhat squeaky voice as natural of those who were twelve, “They were larger than me! Rex does boxing and even the upperclassmen are afraid of him.”

“And?” asked the man as he slightly peeked at his child’s face, and bit his lips. Before he ran into another car, though, he turned back to the road.

“I’d have been beaten up worse if I… fought back,” said Sean, realizing just how helpless he was.

“Listen, Sean. Being beaten up doesn’t make you a pussy. Not fighting does! There’s nothing wrong about fighting for what you think is right.” he said and stepped on the brakes. Not a moment after, he slapped on the horns, irritated at both the situation and the car jam, “That’s it. You’re taking fighting lessons next week.”

“But I don’t want to!” shouted out Sean, “Hitting others is bad! I can’t do it!”

“Then learn not to get beaten up and say that. It’s called self-defense for a reason,” said the man, but when Sean opened his mouth, he simply stared at the boy, “We’re not having that conversation again. You will learn to fight.”

As Sean started to awaken, the short dream came to an end…

 

***

 

“You’re awake,” said Brandon as Sean slumped up to a sitting position. He rubbed his eyes and a good amount of boogers dropped down, crusted. His memories were fuzzy, but when he thought back to the events of yesterday, he almost gagged. But his headache saved him this time by teaming up with the pain in his back. Then he remembered. He’d killed someone!

“You asshole!” shouted Sean. He’d punched him in the face!

“You were melting down. I had to,” said Brandon as he sharpened his axe far too casually, almost naked. Next to him were two women, sitting on both his sides and caressing him. He could see one of them wearing his tunic and the other his pants, and Brandon himself had another set of pants, these ones looser, shorter and lighter. They were all hunched up underneath the fur clearly taken from the giant and hiding from the cold.

“And what you do is punch me?” asked Sean, almost not believing in Brandon’s words. How was he not shaken? He’d killed a person, and a giant! “Fucking have common sense for once!”

“Would you have preferred the axe? Otherwise you might have killed the others as well,” he answered as he sat up. Only then did Sean realize they were inside the hut, which was far more spacious than he expected, and he was lying on a part of the ground with some clothes on it.

There wasn’t much but a large bowl and a cup, clearly belonging to the giant, and some ragged blankets here and there; but there was some fur carpet, or rather, rug that covered most of the ground. More evidently he could see a particular piece of the ground that didn’t have the rug covering it, and from within he could smell a disgusting rotten stench. A slight peek revealed that it had rotten fruits and vegetables infested with maggots.

Why did they keep that here?

“Fine,” said Sean and stood up. He didn’t plan on staying in this hut for long. It was disgusting, so he left through one of the doors —the one to his left.

He didn’t hate the fact that Brandon had done something that hurt him, but he hated the fact that what he’d done was right. And what he himself did wasn’t. A hurried, “Wait,” from Brandon was completely ignored.

And not a moment after he’d left, Sean regretted it. The scattered remains of the woman were still there, but he was calmer now and slightly more likely to look away. And he did, almost instantly.

“That’s what I was going to warn you about,” said Brandon as he came out the grass door. It was the type that could just be lifted, and it was obvious it didn’t do much to keep the cold out. Being meant for a giant, clearly, the doors were large, and that the grass was far from the ground, letting cold air in. While it wasn’t much, it did do something, as Sean could feel slightly cold outside it —something he’d completely forgotten yesterday.

“Right,” said Sean and turned back, and inevitably met eyes with Brandon. Or rather, saw him. Their eye levels were completely different and didn’t allow for much eye contact. Then after a few seconds, he spoke, “Fuck.”

“You’re strong,” said Brandon. He was blunt, far too blunt. Perhaps that’s why hating him was so hard, “Sorry about before.”

“Just… give me some time to process it,” said Sean and walked past him, and onto the other side of the hut through the other door.